Copies of customized Taking It Home handout (see Preparation)
Preparation for Activity
Review the Taking It Home section of this workshop. Download it to your computer, customize it for your group, and make a printout or photocopy for each participant.
Description of Activity
Summarize the workshop and its focus on love. Ask whether any participants have questions or comments about the workshop's theme or discussions.
Distribute the Taking It Home handout you have prepared. Explain that this workshop's "Affection Connection" activity is particularly important - it will help couples write their covenants for the final workshop. Remind couples to bring their covenants to the next session. Emphasize that they will be sharing their covenants with the other participants.
You may want to take a few minutes to discuss the form of the next workshop's celebration, which can range from sharing a simple snack to a potluck dinner at someone's home. Participants may be invited to plan the celebration among themselves, using the contact sheet provided at the start of the program.
Gather participants around the chalice. Invite each person to offer one thought or insight about love or this workshop.
If you wish, read the following words by Mother Theresa:
Love cannot remain by itself - it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service. Whatever form we are, able or disabled, rich or poor, it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing, a lifelong sharing of love with others.
As you extinguish the chalice, read the following closing words:
May our efforts here fuel the fires of connection in this world. May our individual efforts take us one step closer to creating a world of inherent worth and dignity for every person, beginning right here with our partners. Blessed be; may it be so; amen.
